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The Boys on the Bus

11.03.08 5:56 AM ET

I went to a McCain rally in Woodbridge, Virginia on October 18. It was nothing out of the ordinary, until afterward I came upon a guy who was ranting about media mistreatment of Joe the Plumber. He was a local construction worker, complete with hardhat, and he spoke with a heavy Spanish accent. He thought I was there to give him a hard time, perhaps about his immigration status, so he loudly told me he was an American citizen and pulled out his U.S. passport and stuck it about an inch from my nose. "In your face!" he said. He then spoke rather eloquently of his pursuit of the American dream. "I was born in Colombia," he told me, "but I was made in the U.S.A." His name was Tito Munoz, and I wrote a favorable piece about him. Within 24 hours, Sarah Palin started using him in her speeches, then he was onstage with John McCain—as "Tito the Builder"—and the last I saw, he was on "Hannity & Colmes." What a country.